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What is Success in the RPG Industry?
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<blockquote data-quote="GamerforHire" data-source="post: 9235830" data-attributes="member: 7042364"><p>I tend to agree with OP, in that “success” of a publisher/company in this particular industry means being able to support yourself with the product you are publishing. That is different than “success” as it relates to a particular product/game, which would be defined as selling enough copies such that you make net profit (equal to what a normal job would have earned) over the time/effort you put into it. I don’t think many people in the hobby would impose a requirement that the financial success hit a “ten+ full time employee-level” as the litmus test for “success”, let alone TSR/WoTC-level financial success.</p><p></p><p>By my weird metric above, companies like Chaosium, Paizo, Kobold Press, etc., would constitute “wildly successful“ and no longer part of the discussion when measuring others. TSR back in the day, or WoTC’s D&D division now, are also not part of the discussion; comparing yourself to TSR or WoTC would be like opening a store and making Walmart the standard against which to judge your success.</p><p></p><p>Of course, many in this hobby/industry aren’t even aiming for financial success, so for them “success” just means favorable reviews and a relatively-decent number of people playing their game (compared to other games in their niche). But even these people, once they achieve a certain level of this personal satisfaction, will start to dream about selling enough to make game design their full-time job, which brings them to the first definition (above).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GamerforHire, post: 9235830, member: 7042364"] I tend to agree with OP, in that “success” of a publisher/company in this particular industry means being able to support yourself with the product you are publishing. That is different than “success” as it relates to a particular product/game, which would be defined as selling enough copies such that you make net profit (equal to what a normal job would have earned) over the time/effort you put into it. I don’t think many people in the hobby would impose a requirement that the financial success hit a “ten+ full time employee-level” as the litmus test for “success”, let alone TSR/WoTC-level financial success. By my weird metric above, companies like Chaosium, Paizo, Kobold Press, etc., would constitute “wildly successful“ and no longer part of the discussion when measuring others. TSR back in the day, or WoTC’s D&D division now, are also not part of the discussion; comparing yourself to TSR or WoTC would be like opening a store and making Walmart the standard against which to judge your success. Of course, many in this hobby/industry aren’t even aiming for financial success, so for them “success” just means favorable reviews and a relatively-decent number of people playing their game (compared to other games in their niche). But even these people, once they achieve a certain level of this personal satisfaction, will start to dream about selling enough to make game design their full-time job, which brings them to the first definition (above). [/QUOTE]
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